As I sit here on the terrace of where we are staying in Greece, my heart is heavy.
I want to paint a very clear picture of what the refugee camp is like. I want to make sure I do it justice, so you can feel what our teams are feeling. Or, even better…what the refugees are feeling.
It’s about 64 degrees outside right now. I’m outside by choice, while families I’ve been helping get more blankets for their newborns and small children are sleeping in tents because they are running from something much worse than their situation here.
This is hope for them. This is the better option for these people.
We walked into camp the first day for orientation, and then quickly got thrown into our first shift.
Let me tell you that the volunteers running the show here waste no time with giving out assignments (but that’s because they are so short on volunteers…more on that later).
My teammate (and friend) Sisay were sent to a tent to see how many people were living there.
Wanting to serve the refugee families in whatever way we could, we took all of one of the father’s words straight to heart and traveled back and forth from the office and his tent to fight for the room they had. Finally, we were told that we aren’t asking them if it is okay if another family of seven move into a tent that already had six people in it, but we were letting them know that a family of seven WILL be moving in later and to make room.
Let me be clear that the intentions here aren’t meant to seem harsh or forceful, but the reality of the situation is that this really is a crisis. There are more people coming into the camp than places for them to lay their heads.
The stories I could tell are endless…and I’ve only worked three shifts.
– Small children saying “hello, hello, hello” and just wanting to hold your hand
– Hearing someone repeatedly saying “I love you” and turning around to see a young girl staring at you and waving
– Pushing a pregnant lady up a hill because she may or may not be in labor
– Pushing an old lady up a hill because she got knocked down walking down the hill
– Admiring a cute little baby, then seeing another cute little baby and the mom handing it to you without any hesitation and your heart being so full
– Having a father being very upset about not having enough blankets and you doing everything you can to get those for his family of three with cute little baby (they are everywhere, y’all) and seeing the sincere gratitude in their eyes for taking the time to hear them out and receiving a firm handshake from the father
– Moving tents under tarps because a big rain storm is coming
– Giving out rope for them to dry out their blankets because of the big rain storm
I feel so helpless for these people. I want to do so much more than getting them more blankets or moving them to another tent that they don’t even want to be in.
But I am here now, and I will love them and I will fight for them.
